Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/221

 The shipping belonging to France was then, it would appear, only one-ninth of that belonging to the Dutch, or one-fifth of that of Great Britain, which, on the authority of Dr. Charles Devonport, had doubled between 1666 and 1688, while her royal navy had in the same time increased from 62,594 to 101,032 tons.

From another return we for the first time ascertain the annual clearances outwards from Great Britain, and the value of the cargoes of the ships. These in 1688 amounted to 190,533 tons of English, and 95,267 tons of foreign vessels, the gross value of these exports being 4,486,087l., showing an annual increase not merely steady but rapid during the previous ten years. War, however, again harassed the people. France, the old enemy of England, now sought to pluck from her the laurels she had won from the Dutch, and to claim a maritime supremacy over both nations. Her naval force had now become so formidable, being augmented by numerous privateers, that it played havoc among the merchant vessels of Great Britain, destroying or capturing nearly the whole Smyrna fleet, consisting of many richly laden vessels, as also two of the English men-of-war which accompanied them.

Such a disaster upon the element where England claimed supremacy was keenly felt, not merely by those persons who were interested in maritime affairs, but by the entire nation, while the direct loss sustained by the English was estimated by the French at one million sterling. The Turkey